“You gotta be kidding me,” said Jean, genuine surprise in her voice, almost to the point of being offended. “That makes us what, a hundred goddamn years old or what.”
“Something like that. How’re your sons?”
They kept talking about kids and houses and births and deaths. Vega looked at the semiauto rifles on the wall, arranged by popularity as far as she could tell: Bushmasters, S&Ws, Sporticals, a Colt at the end of the row.
“Jason and his wife had twins, I tell you that?” said Jean. “Sweet kids, but ugly. Don’t know how they got that way either. Jason and Melanie are attractive; it’s some kind of mystery.”
“Could I see your Colt?” said Vega.
Jean and Cap turned to her, both seeming surprised to hear her speak.
“You got it, hon,” said Jean, going behind the counter. “You know I can’t sell it to you, right? Have to wait for regular store hours.”
“That’s fine,” said Vega. “I just want to try it out.”
Jean found a key on her ring and unlocked the case, lifted the rifle and handed it to Vega over the counter, continuing her conversation with Cap.
“Names are Boyd and Blaine. I said, ‘Isn’t Blaine a girl’s name?’ Didn’t go over so well.”
One hand on the grip and the other on the underside of the barrel, Vega held the rifle up, pressed her cheek against the stock. She could smell the alloy in the back of her throat, the tinny burn of it. The stock pushed against her shoulder; something wasn’t right. A Goldilocks feeling.
“How long is it?” Vega said to Jean.
Jean thought.
“Thirty-two I think, with the stock retracted. Something wrong?”
“Seems long to me.”
Jean pulled out a lip balm stick and unscrewed the top, rubbed it across her lips, the color of rare meat.
“Well, what’re you comparing it to, hon?”
Vega glanced at Cap and could see him putting something together; she knew the look now, his eyes got a little dreamy, and his head bobbed slightly from side to side, like he was weighing two things. Like they were hanging on his ears.
“An M4,” said Cap. Then he looked at Vega. “Right?”
She relaxed the grip, held it to her side. Cap was grinning like he had won a poker hand.
“Right,” she said.
“Oh, you’re military?” said Jean. “My nephew’s in the marines.”
“I only went through basic,” said Vega.
At the mention of the word she felt the heat, dirt from the ground in her mouth, triceps and deltoids humming, mashed like lemon pulp. And the hunger that started in her bones instead of her stomach, for any kind of calories—meatloaf between bread dipped in whole milk to get it down quicker and as much coffee as she could swallow, throat already burned from breakfast.
“Army,” said Cap, pointing at her.
“Right.”
He smiled, pleased with himself. Almost made Vega smile too.
“Mind if I strip her?” said Vega.
Jean shrugged one shoulder.
“Help yourself. It’s brand-new, though; you’re not gonna find any deposits.”
“Sure. I just want to field-strip it,” Vega said.
Jean’s eyebrows arched up and she smiled peacefully, knowingly, reminding Vega of yoga teachers, the way at the end they would say, “The light in me bows to the light in you,” or some kind of bullshit.
“It relaxes you, right? Me too,” Jean said. “I’ll get you an Allen wrench.”
“That’s okay,” said Vega, pulling back the charging handle.
She took one of the pins from her hair.
“Ha!” shouted Jean. “She’s prepared. You got a good one here, Cap.”
Vega slid the front pivot pin to the side. The snap of the receivers coming apart had a soporific effect on her; finally she could rest a second.
—
At the inn, Vega went through the motions of someone getting ready for bed: took a shower, brushed her teeth, rubbed some of the complimentary gardenia-smelling lotion into her hands and on her legs. She lay down on the bed, closed her eyes, and did not sleep, ping-ponging questions back and forth in her head. Soon it was five or six, blue light out the window as the sun rose somewhere close. Vega got off the bed and onto the floor on all fours. Then into down dog, where she didn’t linger, walking her feet up to her hands until they met. She held her breath, tensed her abs, and brought her legs up above, then stretched them out. Widened the fingers. Breathed.
Then her mother in the hospital, the last time, Vega leaned down to kiss her forehead, and her mother grabbed her head suddenly and tried to pull her down, but she was not strong at that point. Vega was startled and a little terrified because she’d thought her mother was asleep. Her mother pushed her lips out like Vega was a drink she was trying to reach, and kissed the ridge between Vega’s nose and cheek. Then she went back to dying.
Vega came down from the handstand and sat on the floor with her knees bent and her head between them. She had been at her father’s house when she heard the news. She’d always thought she would just know, that there was a cosmic alarm clock built in her chest linking her to her mother, but no. Her mother had died, and Vega had no idea.
And the Brandt girls were not even blood. These things weren’t real, these connections between family members, husband to wife, parent to child. This psychic trash of people saying, “I knew when so-and-so died because I felt it in my soul or my heart or my pockets.” You didn’t, thought Vega, you had no idea. Those girls could have been in the ground two hours after they disappeared, and all of us have been running like hell in our mouse maze since then, tapping our bells and flags, desperate for pellets.
11
The next morning they arrived at Charlie Bright’s mother’s house early. A garbage truck rambled down the street. Cap pressed the doorbell, a grimy little button set in a rusty diamond.
“Do you want to talk about goals?” he said.
Vega’s right shoulder jerked, the suggestion of a shrug.
“No change,” she said. “Right?”
“You’re asking me?” said Cap.
“Yes,” said Vega.
Cap almost believed her.
Then a dog started barking. Low bark, big dog, he thought. He could hear it sniffing at the door.
He pulled the screen door open and knocked, and the dog continued to alternately bark and sniff. He turned back to Vega.
“Your guy sure she’s here?”
“Yes.”
Cap kept knocking, driving a stick in an anthill and shaking it around. Up and out, everyone.
Then footsteps, and a voice shouted either at Cap or the dog or both, “That’s enough! That’s enough!”
The door opened, and there was a slice of a woman, fat, loose gray curls on top of her head like Easter basket grass, and the dog, medium-sized, pushed his black-olive nose on either side of the woman’s legs.
“Yeah?” she said.
“Mrs. Lanawicz?” said Cap.
“Who’s askin’?”
Great start, lady, thought Cap.
“My name is Max Caplan; this is Alice Vega. We’re private investigators working with the Denville Police.”
Mrs. Lanawicz remained unmoved. She eyed them both.
“I’m all paid up on tickets,” she said.
“Ma’am, we’re hoping you might help us locate your son, Charles Bright.”
A little flare in the dull eyes at the name.